Anugriha Charitable Trust

Highlights of 2004 – 2005 Dhruv, Ramya and Arjun decided to return to Mumbai. The prayer and send off meeting was terrific. Children came up front and expressed themselves. All of them must have surely wondered on their popularity, so many children coming up and telling them how wonderful they were and how all of us would miss them. Dhruv has joined a school in Mumbai and Ramya and Arjun have enrolled for NIOS based std. X courses. Much as a farewell is sad, knowing that all must move on, we wished them all success in life. Laxmi Mohan joined us along with her two year old son, Akash. Mohan who has been our constant assistor and positive critic for over two years now, decided to move to Arasavanangkadu so that he could admit his son into our school ( I had made it clear that AVK children get the first preference during admissions). Laxmi decided to contribute by volunteering to be a teacher and has quickly proved to be a terrific asset. She is the first volunteer parent t...

Highlights of 2003 – 2004 Two teachers’ training courses and six parents’ workshops were conducted during the year and it is really wonderful to feel that more and more small schools are becoming a reality. We strongly believe that several small and efficient schools are really the solution to the burgeoning student population. (Just as we believe that one large dam will really solve less, than 1000 small lakes and reservoirs; no one will then have the right to take away another’s joy of fulfillment!) Jnana Vahanam – a library and laboratory on wheels – was welcomed by 14 primary schools around our village within a month. (Jnana Vahanam means a vehicle of Knowledge.) The bus makes weekly tours of schools. Jnana Vahanam is a 24-seater Swaraj Mazda donated by Kalpataru Trust, through Mr. M.K.Hamied of CIPLA, Mumbai. The bus has its interiors refitted with two horizontal cupboards, overhead racks and two seats – one for the driver [as yet that’s Raghavan] and ...

Snapshots of 2002 - 2003      Aruna's column in the Sunday Express -"Alternative Schooling" -remained popular and they decided to publish a compendium of the articles of the last two years in book form "Your child can be a genius" Aruna was awarded a medal for the Woman of the Year (Education) for pioneering work on Alternative Schooling; the list of awardees included Dr.Padma Subramaniam, Ms.Shiny Wilson and others.      Three teachers' training courses were conducted during the year and we are really happy to say that our dream in 1999 of ten schools in ten years was becoming a reality! (we have helped begin schools five, six and seven this year ). Manthan Vidyashram at Chennai and Zenith School at Trichy and the best - The Delta Study school, Kochi (a CBSE school with more than 750 children).They have decided to revamp their systems to follow our methods in their school. We understand that this is a very pres...

Note on Conference - ICPD - Chennai - September 1999       In September, we were invited to participate by the International Commission for Peace and Development, at a conference on the Theory of Development. They required us to present a paper on education and society with specific reference to the work being done here and at Primrose school in Pondicherry. The participants at the conference were to be from the UN, UNESCO, World Bank, and M S Swaminathan Research Foundation. It was presided by the President of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences - Mr Harlan Cleveland.       The ICPD has been one of our donors and has helped the school from its inception. They now wanted us to give a detail analysis of our work; show our techniques to discuss how they could be replicated; the possible educational and social changes that might come about by it.       "To show the efficacy may be you could...